Surfacing
from the murky depths of a recent Twenty First birthday this
story is an attempt of a recollection of events over that
prementioned 21 year period of a group of motorsport enthusiasts
calling themselves the Killer Mullet Rallye Team.

Well I guess the
likely place to start would be around twenty two years ago when
one could be found sitting in a cleverly disguised GT Cortina at
a set of traffic lights waiting for the hordes of Datsun 1600s or
Escorts to try and blow you into the weeds. As this was indeed
proving to be a costly exercise per way of attracting the highway
constabulary I decided to go and join a Car Club with the thought
of doing all the same things and not risk running the gauntlet
with the boys in blue as the events would be CAMS sanctioned on
closed roads. It was just after the same time I was introduced to
Car Rallying.

My invitation
from well known Rally Competitors John B and Sonja, ( my sister,
unmarried at the time), to accompany them to the 1977 Bega Valley
Rally to help out the University Car Club run a finish control
was too good to pass up, after all, not everyone could score an
invitation in the middle of winter to probably the coldest region
of southern NSW to stand under a CAMS endorsed snow protecting
umbrella in the middle of nowhere in the Bondi State Forest
complete with plastic bag covered, four layers of socks ( I was
pretty naive in those days!) waiting for some semblance of
horsepower heaven,or even a glimpse of a full house BDA. ( Full
apologies go to the most inappropriately named area in NSW which
wins the frozen award HANDS DOWN! ..... Sunny? Corner). Well I
came, I saw , I froze, I saw
again and again and again and I instantly decided rallying was to
be part of my future as it stands now 22yrs later. You could say
the birth of the Killer Mullet Rallye Team was not to be far away.

On arriving back
and thawing out, KJ who had accompanied myself together with
advise from Sonja And John soon had us building "the secret
weapon".It was to be a $620 registered Cortina GT 4 Door
1500 purchased from some gentleman who had assured us he had only
driven it backwards and forwards to the local pub where he lived?
and only on weekends!, sounded so familiar and good to us at the
time.

Strange how the
news of a car with a dubious future travels the neighborhood as
there was never a problem finding a helping hand with the project?

Bolting in the new 50kmph faster seat belts and patching up the
numerous leaks in the factory underslung petrol tank (the weekend
only usage of the previous owner must have been brought on by
lack of fuel!), a set of 'rally' retreads, we were ready to do a
Leyland Brothers out in the mulga.

The only problem
was that the car had not been consulted as to its destiny. I
recall it took an instant dislike to dust which of course meant
more 'bonding' nights in it's home garage convincing it that
retirement age was not 10 years old but in fact to remember it's
cousins that took out two Southern Cross Rally's and a Bathurst
win as well. We were doing reconnaissance work for our car club
at the time, (Pacific Rally Club) in the Wingham area on the
North Coast of NSW for a future event. Our group at the time
included people with names such as Strop, (for reasons better
known to himself), Garden Fork, (he was a Horticulturist) also in
another Cortina, Yellow Submarine, (as the fading memory recalls
he drove a yellow HT which always seemed to have trouble
negotiating creeks), Ian & Sharon in a Mazda and Tom who
could pretty well put his hand to anything, especially Directing
events.

Further coaxing
and bonding sessions back home were becoming a problem due to the
large collection of now empty cartons restricting access to the
future beast of the forests.Our big day was to come during the
running of the Manning Valley 400 on 10th June 1978. We were
asked to sweep the event due to Tony W (a later Bega Valley Rally
director) not being available to sweep. The crew on this day was
myself Flash, Navigator was Strop and our service crew was Brick,
Pom Pom, Ness, Paul & Pat.

Was this the event responsible for the birth of the infamous
Killer Mullet Rallye Team? and how would this existence come
about? Well sorry guys, we ARE Mullets and we have a habit of
doing things like this so stay tuned for our next episode of
"No Fishing Allowed!!". After all we do have a hangover
to get rid of!